Just Maybe You Need This
by Wyndi
Summary: Hunter's and Shawn's similar personalities led to the SummerSlam 2002 match being so brutal.


Content: Mature subject matter, implied m/m slash, language, mild violence, angst.  
  
Character/s: Hunter, Shawn Michaels, mention of NAO and Chyna.  
  
Disclaimer: I own NO ONE depicted in these fics. I am not endorsed by any person, corporation, federation, promotion, etc., nor do I receive any monies for writing sick and twisted tales of their imagined goings-on. Inspired by "My Friends Over You" by New Found Glory. All lyrics, quotations, etc. used without permission. No infringement or disrespect to the various artisans is intended, so please don't sue me.  
  
Notes: Written as a response to a challenge by Carley, Eva, and Christina O. Incorporates the Non-Sanctioned match from SummerSlam (Aug. 25 2002).  
  
* * *  
  
It was the biggest street fight of the decade. The triumphant return of the one and only Shawn Michaels. The Main Event. The Icon. The Showstopper.  
  
The arrogant prick.  
  
Hunter hadn't been able to fully conceal his disapproval when Shawn told him he wanted to return to competition. "You don't know how much abuse your back can withstand, so why do you want to push things? Why can't you just be content where you are?"  
  
Shawn rolled his eyes dramatically. "Is that really why you don't want me to come back, Hunter? Or is it that you're not ready to share the spotlight again?"  
  
Hunter always seemed to forget just how well Shawn knew him and how quickly he could see through Hunter's bullshit. It was part of what made him so irritating. That and the fact that he wouldn't listen. At one point, Hunter had Shawn pressed into the corner after giving him a brutal Irish Whip. With one hand in his hair, he gripped his chin roughly with the other and lowered his face to Shawn's. "Take it easy on yourself or I'll make you fucking sorry, Shawn. I won't warn you again." Shawn popped off with some smart-ass remark about Hunter's bald spot and Hunter countered by knocking Shawn to his knees and doing a crotch chop inches away from his face. The crowd ate it up. They always did.  
  
Later on, Hunter had the opportunity to drive his point home. Shawn was crouching on his hands and knees in the middle of the ring, goading him. "Dammit, Hunter, quit stalling and hit me!" Shawn hissed from his vulnerable position. "Just fucking DO it!!"  
  
Hunter stood poised above him; the leather belt in his hands was Shawn's own, yanked roughly from the loops of his jeans only moments ago. He brought the belt slashing down across Shawn's shoulders, just as they'd planned. One good shot. The blow was actually a lot harder than he had intended, and Shawn had no trouble selling it. His cries were as real as the angry red welt that appeared almost immediately. A wicked thought crossed Hunter's mind and a sly smile played across his features. He hesitated for a moment, shouted a few things at Earl Hebner, and cast a quick glance out at the sold-out crowd in the Nassau Coliseum. They wanted a show, all right, and that's exactly what they were going to get. Hunter brought the belt down once more while Shawn was still recovering from the first blow. "Next time don't be so fucking eager," Hunter snarled as he relished Shawn's agonized writhing.  
  
Of course, Shawn had to retaliate. Never one to be outdone, he managed to lash Hunter twice with the belt after tossing him outside the ring, making damn sure his blows were far more vicious than Hunter's. Their back and forth sniping continued as well, and served to add even more fire to the match. Hunter got so pissed off at the risks Shawn was taking that he bladed far deeper than he'd originally planned to, hoping that it might shock and alarm Shawn into toning down his performance some. No such luck, as the headstrong man pulled out all the stops and threw everything he had into the match.  
  
So the crowd got their show, Shawn got his triumphant return, and Hunter got a set of stitches across his forehead. Some reward. He'd damn near bled to death in the ring, all to try to convince the infuriating bastard not to cripple himself, and all he had to show for it apart from some great heat was a gaping head wound. Typical.  
  
He tracked Shawn down immediately after being tended to, grabbed him roughly by the arm, and hauled him off to an empty hallway. "What the fuck is your problem? What were you trying to do out there, kill yourself?"  
  
Shawn merely chuckled, amused at Hunter's heated reaction. "I wanted my first real match in four years to be memorable. Think I pulled it off?"  
  
Hunter's lip curled up in a snarl. "I'm gonna pull your head off your body if you ever do something that stupid again. You are the most stubborn, pig- headed, foolhardy person I have ever met in my life! Do you know that?"  
  
Shawn raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, that would explain why you and I get along so well, wouldn't it? Because we're so much alike."  
  
Hunter gave an arrogant toss of his head and opened his mouth to speak before realizing that he didn't want to say what was really on his mind. And so he settled for snorting angrily and striding quickly away, towards the locker room, Shawn's words continuing to echo in his head.  
  
"Because we're so much alike."  
  
Were they? Hunter shuddered to think of it. He'd always found Shawn to be far too cocky for his own good. Too prone to taking foolish risks with his body in and out of the ring. He certainly didn't see himself that way. He was always the voice of reason, the calm, calculating veteran, in control in every situation. Every situation but one. And that was any situation in which Shawn was involved. No matter what it was they tried to do together, there was always an underlying level of tension and uncertainty.  
  
Their first and only attempt at intimacy had been just as awkward as their first match together. Hunter and Shawn had begun spending a fair amount of time together at work, so naturally their social lives had occasion to coincide. That December, Hunter had invited Shawn up to his house in Nashua for the weekend, along with Jesse, Billy, and Joanie. An untimely family emergency called Jess and Billy away almost immediately, and Jo came down with a cold, leaving Hunter and Shawn alone and snow-bound in New Hampshire.  
  
Never one to let a change in plans keep him down, Hunter proposed ice skating on the lake behind the house. Shawn seemed surprised but went along with it and they actually enjoyed themselves immensely, goofing around like young boys in a schoolyard. Once they tired of tripping one another on the ice, their antics progressed to building forts in the snow and lobbing snowballs at one another.  
  
Shawn's aim was far worse than Hunter's, and he was definitely coming out the loser. He peeked his head up to check Hunter's position and got nailed right between the eyes with a particularly hard-packed snowball. He fell backwards, momentarily knocked unconscious. After a moment or two of silence, Hunter stopped pelting Shawn's fort and started worrying. When he couldn't stand it any longer, he hurried over to check on Shawn and gasped to see him lying still, a slight trickle of blood running between his eyes.  
  
"Jesus, Shawn, are you okay?" The worry in his voice was very real, as he knelt down and pressed his fingers to the side of Shawn's throat. "Come on, man, open your eyes, talk to me. Do something!" He wondered briefly if he remembered how to perform CPR and hesitantly lowered his mouth to Shawn's.  
  
The second he felt the other man's lips on his own, Shawn's eyes fluttered open, glazed and unfocused. "If you insist..." he muttered sleepily, closed his eyes again, and proceeded to kiss Hunter, who was too startled to protest.  
  
It wasn't until he felt Shawn's tongue sweep inside his mouth that he began to reciprocate. He leaned into the kiss, rubbing his tongue against Shawn's before thrusting it into his mouth in a suggestive rhythm. A low moan rose from the back of his throat as he lost himself in the feel of the other man's mouth. Almost instinctively, he began to grind his hips against Shawn's.  
  
Shawn slowly became aware that there was something pressing down upon him that was definitely not snow. He opened his eyes again and felt them widen in shock. "What the fuck...?" he mumbled against Hunter's mouth, startling the other man into breaking off contact.  
  
"Um..." was all Hunter could manage as he turned three shades of red, turned his head away, and tried to climb off of Shawn. The deep, powdery snow made finding solid footing difficult, and he inadvertently placed a hand on Shawn's abdomen to use as leverage. He felt a suspicious hardness beneath his hand, looked down, and almost immediately wished he hadn't.  
  
Shawn Michaels was many things, Hunter knew, but he'd never realized until now just how physically gifted he was, either. Still blushing furiously, Hunter jerked his hand away as if he'd touched a hot stove and stood up, cursing himself for being caught so off guard. This was definitely NOT something he'd anticipated.  
  
After awkwardly helping Shawn to his feet and back inside the house, Hunter practically threw some cotton swabs and a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide at him and proceeded to act like nothing had happened the entire rest of the weekend. Shawn was hurt, but figured if Hunter wasn't ready for anything more, he wasn't going to push it. He wasn't entirely sure a physical relationship was such a good idea anyway, what with seeing each other at work nearly every day.  
  
Neither man ever mentioned that weekend again, but the tension continued to be felt, both in and out of the ring. Naturally, everyone in the locker room assumed that the two of them had spend the weekend in hedonistic bliss and were just too shy and embarrassed to talk about it. Any attempts to dissuade the rumours only resulted in still more gossip so eventually Hunter and Shawn gave up trying and focused instead on the constant battle of one-upmanship.  
  
It wasn't until Shawn suffered his back injury that Hunter finally swallowed his pride and admitted that he had acted like a spoiled brat, and practically overnight, all the bickering, sniping, and tension of the past were gone. While the two became fast friends, they never again attempted to take their relationship to a more intimate level.  
  
As Hunter's popularity grew, all the attention went straight to his head. He saw less and less of his friend, and Shawn couldn't help but be hurt by the neglect. As his own star was fading before his very eyes, Hunter's was rising at an alarming rate. Apart from a few token inquiries, Hunter made few attempts to rekindle their friendship. Determined to get the better of Hunter, Shawn poured all of his energies into rehabilitation and strength training, working towards an eventual return to the ring. He made no more attempts to contact Hunter, so that when he was finally ready, he'd have the upper hand at last.  
  
It worked.  
  
Shawn had the indescribable pleasure of seeing Hunter thrown completely off guard the day Shawn came strolling through the locker room as if he'd never left it, his clothes fitting tightly enough to show just how fit he was. Hunter's jaw dropped and he stared, dumbfounded.  
  
"Where the fuck did you come from?" he stammered.  
  
Not even slowing his pace, Shawn breezed past Hunter. "You'll have to ask my parents. They wouldn't tell me."  
  
Hunter's lip curled up at the glib comment but he held his tongue. "Fine. If that's how he wants to play it, I don't give a shit," he muttered to himself.  
  
The tension backstage was intense, and their continual back-and-forth attempts to get under the other's skin naturally spilled over into every aspect of their work relationship. The inevitable day came when Shawn announced that he was returning to full-time competition and Hunter was livid. He masked his anger with feigned concern and when Shawn called his bluff, he had no choice but to put the smaller man through hell in the ring. He told himself he was simply teaching Shawn a lesson, but he knew it was much more than that. Much as he hated to admit it to himself, he really DID care and was genuinely worried about how well Shawn's body would hold up.  
  
When the brutal match was finally over, a part of Hunter was relieved beyond words that Shawn proved he could still bring the house down and not get hurt in the process. But the other part of him, the proud and haughty superstar was still not ready to let his guard down and congratulate Shawn on not only giving the fans the match of the decade, but for giving HIM the match of a lifetime. As he let the scalding hot water wash the sweat and grime from his body, he felt pangs of guilt and regret over not once asking after Shawn's health or offering even one kind word.  
  
"Dammit, he scared the hell out of me!" Hunter wasn't even aware he'd spoken aloud. "He could have gotten killed out there and he wouldn't have even cared. He did it all just to get to me. God, why can't I just tell him that I really DO care?" His conversation with himself was abruptly interrupted as he felt a pair of arms wrap around him from behind and he was held in a tight hug. His last coherent thought was a soft voice close to his ear.  
  
"I'm sorry." 


End file.
